Ratings Key

★★★★ = Excellent. The best the genre has to offer.★★★1/2 = Very Good. Perhaps not "perfect," but undoubtedly a must-see.★★★ = Good. Accomplishes what it sets out to do and does it well.★★1/2 = Fair. Clearly flawed and nothing spectacular, but competently made. OK entertainment.★★ = Mediocre. Either highly uneven or by-the-numbers and uninspired.★1/2 = Bad. Very little to recommend.★ = Very Bad. An absolute chore to sit through.NO STARS! = Abysmal. Unwatchable dreck that isn't even bad-movie amusing.SBIG = So Bad It's Good. Technically awful movies with massive entertainment value.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Dream a Little Evil (1990)

... aka: Dream Evil

Directed by:Royce Mathew

Knowing the director started out with David DeCoteau (who gets a special thanks here) should give you some kind of indication of what to expect here. Just like most of DeCoteau's films, past and present, it's dumb, the majority of the action takes place in just one house, there are many lame attempts at comedy and more equal opportunity sexualizing (three different girls go topless and there's a good-looking guy who runs around shirtless and in his tighty whities for at least half his scenes) than usual. Eagle-eyed B-movie devotees and those like myself who watch way too many of these may even recognize exteriors of the house as being the same ones used in SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA (1987). Just like Sorority, this found a place on late night TV on the USA Network's Up All Night program in the early 1990s, which is pretty impressive considering it was made for 9 thousand dollars on leftover 16mm film strips. However, unlike Sorority (which was a Charles Band production), this title is much more difficult to find on home video in the U.S. The distributor was Atlas Entertainment Corporation. Remember another of their genre releases; BLOOD SYMBOL? How about INVASION OF THE MINDBENDERS? Can't say that I do either!

....................................Dream a Little Evil. The age old tale of...

.........................................................Sex!

.......................................................Drugs!

...............................And papier-mâché demonoid monsters!

Two brothers whose parents tragically died share an inherited house worth 250,000 dollars. One brother - Mark (Tom Alexander) - is a coke-snorting, obnoxious, sulky man-whore professional college student whose bitchy girlfriend Veronica (Kathy Smith) is always over. The other brother - George (Richard J. Sebastian) - is an inventor who spends most of his time in his room. The brothers don't get along at all since one is loudly trying to have sex in one room while the other is loudly working on his experiments in another... nevermind the fact they live in a huge home and could probably make better arrangements. Hey Mark, how about you set up shop over on the west wing? Annoyed that George's experiments are ruining her sex life, Veronica destorys George's latest invention. Said invention is some ridiculous-looking contraption consisting of a large plastic helmet and wires connected to a silver box with three red knobs. Though it looks like a hunk of junk, the machine can somehow miraculously make things appear out of mid air if you want them bad enough. During one scene, the scientist's best bud Billy (Ducan Rouleau) wishes for an orange and it appears in his hand. He later sneaks over and wishes his fantasy dream girl Angie (Michele Gaudreau) would show up. She does and he gets "the best blow job this side of Nevada." Oh yeah, and Billy accidentally screws up the machine again.

..................................Bitch ate all my corn fakes!

Pissed off that someone has been messing with his machine and assuming it's his brother again, George angrily says "I wish he was dead!" Lyle Waggoner (about as non-threatening a presence as there ever was) suddenly shows up with a red spotlight behind him and announces himself as "Death." That turns out to be just a nightmare... maybe. George starts hearing strange noises (which sound like jungle animals, including lions and elephants!), has a sex dream with a girl who dances topless with a red boa and then Angie (the girl his friend conjured up) appears in his bed. The childish Angie then shows up the next morning to annoy him at the breakfast table by demanding food ("Angie eat!") After eating five bowls of corn flakes, she's still demanding food. She shows up again in his bedroom wearing lingerie and the two have sex, then he takes topless pictures of her ("I'll do anything you want!"). Eventually, Angie transforms into a pale-faced witch with a black wig, facial boils and rotten teeth for a sub EXORCIST foul-mouthed possession scene. She lifts her dress and says "Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!" She also informs Billy and George that "I'm a great ball squeezer!"

At first, George thinks the house is haunted by the ghost of a woman who was killed in the home years earlier, but then he realizes that since both he and Billy used the machine, it is simply bringing their subconscious thoughts to reality. Since Billy is a huge horror movie fan, a green-faced witch (also played by Gaudreau) pops in and pukes all over Billy's face. A little demon monster also makes an appearance long enough to chew up Veronica's throat. Unfortunately, nearly all of the 'horror' stuff doesn't even happen until the last 15-20 minutes! Until then, the movie is slow, very talky and mostly dull. The acting is pretty bad (though not intolerably so), instead of using smoother editing transitions the filmmakers decide to just cut to another exterior shot of the house (there are probably about 20 of them altogether) and there are some dumb references to everything from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET to GHOSTBUSTERS to STAR TREK. There's also one of those irritating "It was all a dream... Or was it?" style endings. And don't get me started on the awful porn soundtrack. As if it's not bad enough as is, the sound mix is often much louder than the dialogue, making much of it difficult to hear.

................"I give the best blow job this side of Nevada... Or so I've been told!"

Co-star Alexander was a male model, also appeared in the made-for-TV biopic ROCK HUDSON (1990) and the flop lambada movie THE FORBIDDEN DANCE (also 1990) and sadly passed away in 1992 at the age of just 29. Three of the cast members (lead Sebastian, Waggoner and a little-known actress named Victoria Nesbitt, who's seen topless in a dream sequence) were in the terrible DeCoteau slasher movie MURDER WEAPON (1989), which Mathew served as production manager on. Speaking of Mathew, he's made the news here recently for suing the Walt Disney Company (Michael Eisner et. al); claiming they stole many of his original characters and ideas for the hit film PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. For a more detailed interview with Royce conducted by Brandon Sites of Big Daddy Horror Reviews, click RIGHT HERE.

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